Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

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Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

Kuovonne's Guide to Airtable

Specific Solutions

Email digest of a person’s records

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Inspiration

In this

Airtable community post⁠

, a user wants to run an automation that will email [Project Managers] a reminder to approve their [Invoices]. An invoice is approved by selecting a {PM Approved} checkbox.

Each project manager should get only one email listing all unapproved invoices (not one email per invoice).

Project managers should see only their own invoices, not anyone else’s.

Project managers without any unapproved invoices should not get an email at all.

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In this example

Ardelle Guidi has one approved invoice and two unapproved. Ardelle should get one email listing the two unapproved invoices, omitting the approved one.

Garnet Guidi has two approved invoices and no unapproved invoices. Garnet should not get an email at all.

Mitsuko Romig has two unapproved invoices. Mitsuko should g

Setup the schema

In the [Project Managers] table, add a conditional count field {Num Unapproved Invoices} that counts all the linked {Invoices} where the {PM Approved} checkbox is not selected.

This field lets you send emails only to project managers that actually have unapproved invoices. No need to bug project managers that are already on top of their game!

Set up the automation

In the Automation, start with a Find records action that finds all the [Project Managers] based on the condition where the {Num Unapproved Invoices} field is greater than zero.

Have a repeating action group based on the results of the Find records action.

Inside the repeating group, have another Find records action. This second Find records action finds the unapproved invoices in the [Invoices] table based on two conditions:

The {PM Approved} checkbox is not selected, and

The {Project Manager} linked record field matches the current item value for the [Project Manager] in the list for the repeating group.

After the second Find records action, have a Send email action.

get the email from the current [Project Manager] in the repeating group

get the grid of unapproved invoices from the second Find records action.

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Note: When setting the {Project Manager} in the conditions for the second Find records action, I use the is exactly condition with the Airtable record ID of the Current item from the list. This currently displays as an Invalid value, but it works correctly. I believe that the Invalid value display is a bug. If an [Invoice] can have more than one {Project Manager} you may need to use a “contains” condition.

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Tips

If your [Project Managers] table has a User field for the project managers, you can get the email address from that User field.

Do you have an Interface where project managers can see and approve only their own invoices? If so, include a link to that interface right in the interface.

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